


And Way Down We Go

by YouLookGoodInLeather



Series: 30 Days of Dark Fandom Challenge (ACOTAR) [9]
Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas, Crimson Peak (2015)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Crimson Peak Inspired, Dark, F/F, F/M, Ghosts, Gothic, Multi, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-07
Updated: 2017-10-07
Packaged: 2019-01-10 04:09:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12290925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YouLookGoodInLeather/pseuds/YouLookGoodInLeather
Summary: To bring her sisters the prestige they once lost to the sins of their father, and to fulfil the role she was trained for, Nesta  marries a man she already knows to be a monster. Yet when she arrives at Crimson Peak, she soon learns the poison may run deeper than she or any of the rumours ever could have imagined.And all of this is rendered nothing by a woman with silver eyes; A woman who may be the foulest monster of them all.





	And Way Down We Go

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompt: Namren, Victorian Gothic AU**
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> cassian will come in later when shit is going titties up for those who thirst

The smooth hand holding hers has the unmarred texture of a gentleman’s, and from that touch alone Nesta knows she has finally done it. Feyre may have restored the family fortune, but it is she who finally won them back a title. No longer will their family be sneered at as ‘new money’ by those who once simpered at their feet.

She has the title of lady, her rightful heritage stripped of her too young. At last, she is the woman her mother always trained her to become.

Lord Mandray watches her throughout the carriage ride to her new home, but she is careful not to return his gaze.  The wedding may be over, but she knows the game is far from over yet, for he could have the whole thing annulled if she does not tread lightly. She must keep him enchanted with desire a little longer still, and in that, she must keep him waiting. Too often she has seen lovestruck girls cast aside by the men they gave themselves to in a heartbeat.

The fairer sex is too skilled in proving just how unfair their counterparts can be, but she shall not be joining their ranks. Not when she has Elain, unwed and just starting her first season out in society. Their fortune was enough to win Nesta the hand of a Lord, but sweet, kind Elain should not have to settle for a man who will strike her across the cheek at the first misspoken word. With a title and a fortune at her disposal, she shall have her pick of any gentleman at court, and find one truly worthy of her heart. Nesta will make sure of it.

Thus she stares out of the window and ignores the sense of claustrophobic dread the view incites in her. Despite the vast open fields they pass through, what awaits her whispers of a smothering.

What once were endless forests have been stripped back to fuel the powerhouses of the previous towns. Amongst the sullen grey skies falls a constant stream of what looks like snow, but smells like ash, turning the land into a barren blanket populated solely by the occasional protruding blackened stump of the past trees too giant to dislodge.

In spite of her distaste for her new homeland, Nesta finds her curiosity aroused as through the smattering of ash and dying grass, she sees what looks like blood. Her husband notices her peering out the windows. “It’s the clay,” he tells her softly. “Runs for miles around the manor. In these damp months, it expands and leaks through the dirt.” He squeezes her hand all the tighter. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” she answers truthfully, watching streams of scarlet mixed with water running down beneath the carriage. It smells like rust. The stink of it permeates the air to the point where she fears she will never be able to get the smell of it off of her again; She’d always thought Tomas possessed a repulsive scent. Now she would join him.

The carriage trundles up a hill, the horses slowing as they have to work to plough through the porous ground squelching beneath their feet. A gravel trackway has been set out to try and aid arrival at the house, and all around the ground is brown with rot and half buried in snow, that same red seeping through. Every ten metres or so, some great iron machinery buries into the ground, bulky and rusting, apparently in disuse.

“Costs a great deal to power and design these,” Tomas informs her, noticing the wary looks she is giving his creations. “But now that you’re here, that shouldn’t be a problem for long.” This comes as no surprise to her. She always knew his interest in her was coloured by ulterior motives, but she is quite the same. For Elain. She shall force herself to love this place for Elain.

“What are they?” She asks, watching as three men attend to one of them.

“Drills, for harvesting the clay. It’s how my family have made their fortune for centuries. Of course, back then the clay was buried much deeper. Time has washed away the ground, so preventing the drills from sinking has proved cumbersome. But I’m certain I’ve figured out how to fix those issues.”

Ah yes, Tomas the inventor. When they’d been forced to endure one another’s company in public, all he had spoken about were his ambitions and creations. He loved nothing more than to bore her with the specifics of his genius, of how he had mastered the world of engineering by the time he’d hit twelve, and hows all the sciences, be it maths or physics or chemistry, fell under his sway like a snake charmed by music.

Nesta has always despised the sciences, and even more so the men of them. They always seemed to find a way to utilise them to justify their misdeeds. She had no time for men peacocking their intelligence, or the devices they constructed to employ the lower classes. After all, she’d witnessed their after effects upon her youngest sister. And if machines could not be monsters, who was left to blame but their creators?

“How clever,” she says without feeling, turning away from the metal giants to spot the house up close. It truly takes her breath away, and for once, it does so for the right reasons.

Though they may be paupers now, the Mandray family were once the wealthiest in Europe, and had rivalled most of America’s best businessmen too. This lost legacy is preserved in the vast castle that stands atop the hill, wings upon wings upon wings flanking the central building, with great turrets pouring from every possible location, so high that Nesta has to lean out of the window to crane her neck up and view its top. The architecture is old, reminiscent of the medieval gothic period, lacking the refinement of the resurgence movement, but grand and striking nonetheless.

“Welcome, dearest, to Crimson Peak.”

He is the perfect gentleman as he helps her out of the carriage, guiding her to walk across the path. As they approach the imposing doors, he moves to rest a hand upon the small of the back, a touch she has to steel herself to remain in. Memories of what has already passed between them threaten to barrage her, but she is stronger than anything he can ever do to her. She does not let the threat show upon her face.

They enter, and what once was awe turns into horror. Though the outside of stone stands strong against the winds and freezing weather, the inside of the house looks to be a hundred years abandoned. It is magnificent, yes, elaborate and constructed from tirelessly engraved and embellished woods, with a multitude of fine mirrors and stately paintings hung upon the walls, but these facades of wealth are used to cover peeling paint, water dripping from the ceiling, and-

As Nesta steps forward, crimson seeps up from the wooden floor she treads on. To her abject humiliation, she yelps, finding herself sinking with the floor. “My dear, there is nothing to be afraid of. That’s quite normal.” He pulls her to the side, and she watches the floor rise up gradually. The red mostly retreats, though puddles still ooze across the flooring. “I’ve been assured the house won’t truly sink for another century or so.”

“The house is sinking?” She asks, feeling rather ill.

“It’s the clay, my love. As it sinks and spreads, so do we. But there’s no need to worry. Once business takes off with my new designs, we’ll have it all fixed up. Nothing you need to worry your pretty little head about.”

Nesta is about to say something vile that will ruin this whole thing for the lot of them, when she catches hold of distant music. Or, more precisely, a chord. It holds, ringing through the air, before a sister follows in its wake. They sway back and forth, before dissolving into a rainfall of notes that open into a piece of music Nesta has never heard before, and yet finds hauntingly familiar.

Without thinking about it, she leaves Thomas’s possessive hand behind and trails through alien doors and corridors in pursuit of that sad, sad song. Finding herself in a beautiful, if decrepit parlour room, where an enormous staircase beckons her to explore the upper floors, she discovers a grand piano framed by a shaft of light from the broken ceiling. Dust dances in the stream of sunlight, and most surreal of all, a gathering of butterflies flit about around the body of the instrument. When Nesta enters the room, they flutter off, disappearing up, out of the roof.

Drenched in the tumbling notes, which dip into a caressing diminuendo as she approaches, Nesta circles around the piano to find its player. The natural spotlight illuminates their quick fingers. It cuts off just at their wrists, leaving their face in shadow.

As if reeled in by a hook, Nesta draws closer.

They are of a slight build, terribly small, but thin in a way that elongates their limbs, making them appear too long for their body, like a child hitting their first growth spurt in puberty, not yet having filled out their new form. Their colours are similar to Tomas’, with jet black hair and dark skin, though unlike his dark eyes, theirs are the silver of mirrors.

They are far from beautiful, and yet Nesta finds herself staring. Without looking up from where their fingers draw song out of the ivories, the stranger speaks. “You must be my brother’s new bride.” Their features are androgynous, with wide cheekbones, a sharp nose, and thin lips, angular almost to the point where they appear like a newspaper drawing.

“Lord Mandray did not tell me he had a sibling,” Nesta answers as if to explain her staring, an act she still cannot cease. There is something captivating about the strangeness of the stranger before her, magnified tenfold by the music crafted by their fingers.

“I care little for high society,” the stranger says with a slight smirk, leaning forwards to add weight to their playing. It brings them into the light, turning those silver eyes into almost reflective surfaces, like the eyes of a cat. “Thus my dear brother prefers not to mention his having a sister in public.” Finally, the stranger looks up at her, that knowing smirk widening. “Lady Mandrary. Though, since we are to be sisters, I suppose you ought to call me Amren. That is, if you wish to be so friendly.”

“Nesta,” Nesta says as way of answering, closing the gap between herself and the piano. She rests her gloved palm atop the body of the instrument, feeling the vibrations spreading through her muscles. Though she cannot explain it, the song feels like a kind of message. A beacon, which she is trying to decode, because she cannot help it. She meets the silver eyes regarding her, and holds the gaze too long. Something is projected by that gaze, and she can feel it lodge within her abdomen. Even when she glances away, it does not fade; the sensation’s stuck.

“Ah, dear sister,” Tomas says, swanning into the room with no word regarding Nesta’s sudden vagrancy. “I see you’ve had the pleasure of meeting my new wife.”

“It has been rather pleasurable, hasn’t it?” She answers without regarding her brother, keeping those eyes fixed upon Nesta whilst her fingers never once stumble. “I dare say we shall either get on terribly, or famously. There can be no in between for two souls like us.”

“Then let it be the former. I despise girls who gossip with one another. It is like listening to a flock of crows.”

“A murder,” Amren says, returning her watch to her playing.

“A what?” Thomas demands stiffly, his body going rigid.

“A murder of crows, dear brother. That is the correct noun for their collective.”

“Is it? How interesting,” Tomas says disingenuously, pointedly turning to face his wife before extending his hand. “Shall I give you a tour of the place, my love?”

Though she would much rather stay and listen to the sister playing, Nesta knows her duties, and if she is to keep Elain endowed with the connections she wishes, she must pander to her husband, not the musician. “I would adore one.” Taking his hand, she allows herself to be guided off. It is a great display of willpower when she does not glance back at the woman she leaves behind, playing in the glimpse of sunlight.

The rest of the house proves much like the entrance; All of it is stunningly lavish, furnished in the same jade greens and dark woods, with motifs of black velvet and gold burnishing, but all is falling into disrepair. It is rude to ask, but Tomas must see something of a question upon her face, and he guesses its nature all too quickly.

“My father gambled away our fortunes. My mother is responsible for keeping the place still going. A paradigm of a brilliant woman, my mother. She raised me and my sister all whilst managing the estate, but with a father such as ours, there was only so much she could do. When he died so tragically, she remained to guide us.” He predicted her next question too. “He choked. Rather too fond of overeating and overdrinking, and the two proved a fatal match for the old man.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Were you young when it happened?”

“Not young enough. About ten or so. Amren darling was twelve, so she remembers him a little better, poor thing.” The sympathy he speaks of does not register in his tone or upon his face, but Nesta feels it for him. The idea of the tragic piano player losing her father young seems romantically fitting. Her pity for Tomas is rather less, given how she has experienced first hand how he appears to have learned even worse behaviours.

He leaves her to settle in her bedroom for the afternoon, citing that he will be up in his study working on his designs. She is all too happy to bid him farewell and see the back of him and the way he won’t stop touching her, pulling her this way and that as if she is a doll.

The tour did at least serve the purpose of giving her some sense of direction in this veritable maze of a home, even if it has left her in a deeper state of despair than the ride up did. Built so long ago, and with most of the gas lighting broken, the place is a web of shadows even in the day. To navigate anywhere one must tread from pool of light to pool of light through a thick stretch of impenetrable darkness, praying one doesn’t bump into anything.

Tomas seems to know the house so well he can walk without the aid of a lantern, but she makes a mental note to request plenty of supplies for her own. After all, in a house this big, she is nearly obligated to go exploring, though the occupation doesn’t seem quite as appealing as it should do. In truth, the house makes her feel distinctly uneasy. There is something about the way it creaks and whispers with drafts that makes it feel too inhabited, given how it is home to but three individuals.

Banishing such thoughts from her head, for she is strictly against such superstitious nonsense, Nesta unpacks her things and tries to remember why she has submitted herself to an eternity of this man. All of this, she inwardly knows, is not just for Elain. It is for all of them; The mother who raised her with militant precision to be a lady worthy of the title, for the sister whom she neglected for years and still cannot bear to confront about that truth, and also for herself. All her life, her duty has been to weather storms.

She honestly does not believe she would be able to handle an eternity with someone who loved her, and expected the same in return. But such thoughts are depressing, so she submerges them deeper, beneath bitter comments over Tomas and continues.

As evening sets in, she is called to sup with the others. Amren appears at her door with a knock that does not wait for an answer. Nesta supposes she is unaccustomed to good manners, if she has only lived with her brother her whole life, and parents who passed some time ago. It is a slight she is willing to forgive of the lady of the house, but perhaps not the master.

“Everything with the room to your liking?” Amren asks, slipping out of the doorway to inspect her work. Though she has consigned herself to a life sentence in this place, Nesta has not yet been able to make the room her own, as if delaying it will somehow alter her elected reality. “We have a dozen more if not. The positioning alright? Not too warm? Too cold?” The entire house is freezing, so she sees no point in complaining on that point. “The ghosts all quiet enough?”

“Everything is lovely,” she lies, refusing to engage in such twaddle, even with the silver-eyed Mandray. No longer seated, the sister reveals her true height to be even shorter than imagined, the peak of her hair not quite level with Nesta’s jawline. From the simple white gown she wore upon their meeting she has changed into her evening attire, a heavy dress of elaborate black lace and satin, setting off the light of her eyes, and the impressive red ruby that rests upon her throat.

“A present from my mother,” Amren says, noting the attention. With two delicate fingers she touches the glinting red surface and smiles serenely. “A blood ruby. Rather fitting, given that it was bequeathed to me when she died.” Just like her brother, she betrays no remorse regarding her parents’ demise. Given her father, Nesta thinks she can understand it.

“Come, my new sister.” Taking the offered hand, she is drawn from her bedroom back into the darkness of the hallways. “Dine with us, and we shall add some colour back to those pale cheeks of yours.”


End file.
